Review: Ourika by Duchesse Claire de Durfort Durass

Welcome to the first installment of Novellas for Monday, a series where we plan to highlight a novella every Monday (or, realistically, some Mondays now and then). These will not necessarily be full reviews, they may just be a nod in the direction of a novella we found interesting. Our first selection is Ourika, available here in the original French, and here in English.

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Ourika is a 1823 novella by Claire de Duras, inspired by the real story of a black girl from Senegal living in the Paris high society around the time of the French Revolution. The story is narrated in first person, by a young doctor who meets and treats Ourika (to the reader) and by Ourika herself (to the doctor).

Ourika's entire family was enslaved when she was very young, and a French nobleman took pity on her and took her back to Paris with him. He placed her in the care of his sister, madame de B., who raised her with kindness and devotion, giving her access to the best society and education that noble girls could hope for. Ourika is told about her origins, but has no memories of her life before Paris and is fully committed to her life as madame de B's protegee. She grows up happy, friends with madame's sons, appreciated by the Parisian society for her wit and taste. 

As a teenager, she becomes aware of the difference between her and her peers and of what this difference means for her prospects. She learns that, because of her skin color, she will never be accepted as an adult in the high society that found her entertaining as a child. As she realizes that she doesn't fully belong anywhere and sees as inevitable a life of loneliness, of never being loved, she succumbs to despair and becomes "sick with melancholy."

The Revolution allows her to hope again: in the general chaos and turmoil, societal distinctions seem less important, and Ourika glimpses a world that would have room for her. During the Terror, solidarity in the face of death and loss brings Ourika closer to the family, and she even falls in love. Her melancholy fades and she has a vague indistinct vision of a happy future. But as the Terror winds down, Ourika must face the fact that society is rearranging itself.

Scenes from Contes Cruels: Les Demoiselles de Bienfilâtre

Constantin Guys, Demimondaines

Contes cruels (Cruel Tales, sometimes also translated as Sardonic Tales) is a book that has been unexpectedly dear to my heart. I say "unexpectedly" because neither satire of bourgeois morality, nor horror in the style of Edgar Allan Poe have ever been among my favorite things, and this book deals in both. Moreover, it delivers them in the guise of short stories, a literary form I'm not exactly fond of. And yet my memory of Contes cruels is that of a book of exquisitely sharp and beautiful tales, a book that was a complete pleasure to read, made doubly so by the fact that it was discovered completely by chance. To test this impression, I am returning to it now for o.'s French February event (and I reading it in French for the first time, too). I will be writing here about the tales that strike me and I hope to find some time to discuss the author as well, Jean-Marie-Mathias-Philippe-Auguste WHAT-were-my-parents-thinking de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, who was a pretty interesting character in his own right.

When it comes to Les demoiselles de Bienfilâtre, the first of the Cruel Tales (French version available here; English version available here), there are two things I appreciated. One is a turn a phrase that was so nice I felt the need to keep it - to write it down or memorize it, to carry it with me in some form. The other is the underhanded cleverness of its construction. Let me explain what I mean with this last point.